Press Releases

BAE Systems completes SilverSky acquisition

December 12, 2014Toggle Content

Further to the announcement of 21 October 2014, BAE Systems has completed the acquisition of Perimeter Internetworking Corp., which trades as SilverSky, a commercial cyber service provider. The consideration of $232.5 million (approximately £144.4 million) has been funded from BAE Systems' existing cash resources.

SilverSky is a commercial cyber services and compliance provider, headquartered in New York, with operations in the US and the Philippines. The company currently employs approximately 400 staff and has over 5,000 customers.

Ian King, Chief Executive, BAE Systems said: “SilverSky’s cloud-based email and network security solutions complement our existing portfolio and increase our presence in the United States, a very significant market for IT security. The enlarged business will offer customers an attractive suite of products and services to protect critical information and networks from the rapidly growing threat of digital crime.”

SilverSky’s highly skilled sales, marketing and engineering workforce and experienced management team will join Applied Intelligence’s Commercial Solutions division, which will be led by SilverSky’s Chief Executive Officer, Tim Harvey.

About BAE Systems and BAE Systems Applied Intelligence

At BAE Systems, we serve the needs of our customers by delivering a wide range of advanced defence, aerospace and security solutions that provide a performance edge. We work together with local partners to develop, engineer, manufacture and support the innovations that increase defence sovereignty, sustain economies and safeguard commercial interests. With over 80,000 employees in six continents, we are committed to creating solutions that protect and strengthen nations, commerce, communities and people.

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence is a business division of BAE Systems that delivers solutions that help clients to protect and enhance their critical assets in the intelligence age. Our intelligent protection solutions combine large-scale data exploitation, ‘intelligence-grade’ security and complex services and solutions integration. We operate in four key domains of expertise: cyber security, financial crime, communications intelligence and digital transformation.

NEW YORK, November 12, 2014 – SilverSky, the leading independent provider of cloud-based security software and managed services, today announced that its Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) solution has, proactively catches, by design, all exploits designed to target the recently disclosed “Unicorn” Internet Explorer bug (CVE-2014-6332).

“The fact that SilverSky TAP catches the exploit out of the box, without any updates, shows the superiority of our proprietary, next generation approach,” said John Viega, Executive Vice President of Products, Strategy and Services, SilverSky. “Typical sandbox vendors leave their customers vulnerable during the first few minutes of the attack. SilverSky’s approach is truly preventative. We don’t let the payload get to our users – period.”

This vulnerability, dubbed Unicorn, allows for remote exploitation and ‘drive-by’ attacks on users of all versions of Internet Explorer, dating back as far as Windows 95. According to NIST, the vulnerability warranted a critical score of 9.3 in all versions of Windows. It was further described as “unicorn” like, due to its rare nature.

“Few people expected such an incredibly pervasive bug that affects all versions of Windows – a mythical unicorn,” added Brandon Edwards, vice president of SilverSky Labs. “This vulnerability is proof that unicorns do exist, and we catch them out of the box.”

SilverSky TAP, part of SilverSky’s Email Protection Services, is a cloud-based service that stops targeted attacks, spear phishing, “longline” phishing, and advanced zero-day exploits without relying on anti-virus signatures, which take time to develop, leaving customers vulnerable in the meantime. In addition to sandboxing, a technique used by other targeted attack solutions, SilverSky TAP uses advanced techniques including statistical analysis, machine learning and static and dynamic analysis to catch attacks that can defeat simple sandboxing.

As part of the broader portfolio of SilverSky Managed Security Services, customers have access to security at all points of the kill chain; providing a rich, in-depth defense strategy that includes web security, employee training, 24/7/365 event monitoring and cross-customer correlation.

SilverSky to be Acquired by BAE Systems

October 21, 2014Toggle Content

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --SilverSky, the leading independent provider of cloud-based security software and managed services, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by BAE Systems plc. SilverSky will be incorporated into BAE Systems' Applied Intelligence division.

BAE Systems is a global company employing more than 80,000 people worldwide, with a complementary portfolio of security solutions and a history of innovation. SilverSky expects that the acquisition will help strengthen their existing leadership position in the managed services marketplace, and to enhance their customer offering, with a focus on innovative cloud-based security solutions.

SilverSky provides a comprehensive set of cloud-managed security and application services in addition to the most advanced cloud-based email security and threat protection software. Our customers include more than 5,500 organizations in a variety of industries, including financial, healthcare, and retail, as well as a diversified group of mid to large commercial enterprises.

"BAE Systems Applied Intelligence delivers solutions that help clients to protect and enhance their critical assets in the intelligence age," said Tim Harvey, CEO of SilverSky. "This acquisition will further strengthen our ability to deliver the most comprehensive set of cloud-based security software and managed services. Our customers will benefit from BAE Systems' global presence and history of continued innovation. The management team and employees are excited to be part of BAE Systems and Applied Intelligence."

Ian King, Chief Executive, BAE Systems, commented: "The acquisition of SilverSky enhances our strategy to grow BAE Systems' Applied Intelligence commercial cyber security business. SilverSky has an established sales force, a complementary suite of scalable products and a large installed customer base, providing a proven route to commercial markets in the US and other countries for our combined capabilities.

"SilverSky's cloud-based email and network security solutions, its highly skilled resource in marketing and engineering, plus an experienced management team are an ideal fit for Applied Intelligence. Together, the enlarged business will offer corporate clients a suite of products and services to protect critical information and networks and detect cyber threats and financial crime. The enlarged business has outstanding growth opportunities."

About BAE Systems and BAE Systems Applied Intelligence
At BAE Systems, we serve the needs of our customers by delivering a wide range of advanced defense, aerospace and security solutions that provide a performance edge. We work together with local partners to develop, engineer, manufacture and support the innovations that increase defense sovereignty, sustain economies and safeguard commercial interests. With more than 80,000 employees in six continents, we are committed to creating solutions that protect and strengthen nations, commerce, communities and people.

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence is a business division of BAE Systems that delivers solutions that help clients to protect and enhance their critical assets in the intelligence age. Our intelligent protection solutions combine large-scale data exploitation, 'intelligence-grade' security and complex services and solutions integration. We operate in four key domains of expertise: cyber security, financial crime, communications intelligence and digital transformation.

NEW YORK, Aug. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the leading independent provider of cloud-based managed security services, today announced its partnership with ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, a leading IT solutions provider in Japan. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will leverage SilverSky's advanced technology and deep information security expertise to deliver managed security services to its customers. The partnership will enable both SilverSky and ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation to capitalize on the rapidly growing managed security services market inJapan and the entire Asia Pacific region.

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation selected SilverSky after a lengthy competitive process that included a number of leading managed security providers. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will leverage SilverSky's experience in serving highly regulated, security conscious companies to target customers with high security demands, such as companies in the financial services, manufacturing, and public sectors. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation has aggressive growth plans for the MSS business line and aspires to bring on 100 or more customers in 2015. The Tokyo-based IT solutions provider generated more than $3 billion in total revenue in 2013.

This partnership represents another important step in SilverSky's aggressive expansion into the Asia Pacificregion. The company operates a Security Operations Center in Manila, Philippines, and recently announced the expansion of its Managed Application Services and Email Protection Services in Asia through a partnership with SoftLayer, an IBM company.

"The partnership with ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will enable SilverSky to expand our global footprint rapidly by leveraging ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation's great reputation and experience as a leading provider of IT solutions in Japan and across the globe," said Richard Dobrow, President, Asia Pacific Region and Chief Compliance Officer at SilverSky.

Established in 1972, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation delivers complex end-to-end IT solutions and services to enterprises and outsourcing services through our own data centers. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation serves the telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, financial services, retail, distribution, public, utilities, education, life sciences, engineering, and apparel market segments. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation has formed partnerships with hundreds of leading IT companies from all over the world. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation has been aggressively entering emerging markets since June 2011 to engage in full-scale global expansion. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation's global network includes SingaporeBranch, local subsidiaries in the United States, Malaysia and Singapore, and a joint venture in Thailand. We operate globally by making use of the comprehensive strength of the ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation Group. For more information, visit www.ctc-g.co.jp/en.

SilverSky Announces Groundbreaking Service for Targeted and Zero-Day Attack Prevention

“It’s no secret that the bad guys are smarter, better funded and more organized than ever before,” said John Viega, executive vice president of products, strategy and services, SilverSky. “Yesterday’s signature-based approaches and simple content filtering, while still necessary, aren’t enough. Further, they are often deployed out-of-band and, as a result, are detective and not preventative. Our TAP service is deployed in-line with customer email, allowing for a preventative approach.”

SilverSky TAP, part of SilverSky’s Email Protection Services, is a cloud-based service that stops targeted attacks, spear phishing, “longline” phishing, and advanced zero-day exploits without relying on anti-virus signatures, which take time to develop, leaving customers vulnerable in the meantime. In addition to sandboxing, a technique used by other targeted attack solutions, SilverSky TAP uses advanced techniques including statistical analysis, machine learning and static and dynamic analysis to catch attacks that can defeat simple sandboxing.

As part of the broader portfolio of SilverSky Managed Security Services, customers have access to security at all points of the kill chain; providing a rich, in-depth defense strategy that includes web security, employee training, 24/7/365 event monitoring and cross-customer correlation.

According to research from the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) 2014 Data Protection and Breach Readiness Guide, in analysis of nearly 500 breaches in the first half of 2013, 89 percent could have been avoided had simple controls and security best practices been implemented. SilverSky aims to use its Targeted Attack Prevention product to help its customers further prepare for these ongoing and increasing outside attacks and add new protections to counter the advancing state of adversaries.

SilverSky’s Targeted Attack Prevention service will be showcased at the RSA Conference (in South Expo booth # 1501). The product is now available for pre-orders and will be generally available in March 2014.

“Traditional zero-day systems are flawed in that they assume that a payload will exhibit detectable behavior in the allotted time-window,” said Brandon Edwards, vice president SilverSky Labs. “With our TAP solution we can help customers adjust protections to prepare for specific and unusual attack scenarios and offer more comprehensive detection techniques.”

NEW YORK, NY, February, 11, 2014 – SilverSky, the leading independent provider of cloud-based managed security services, today announced the expansion of its SilverSky Labs. At the forefront of vulnerability research and analysis, the lab exercises advanced threat research capabilities to share intelligence that benefits the broader market and enhances the SilverSky service suite. Recently hired threat prevention expert Brandon Edwards will lead the talented pool of experts as vice president of SilverSky Labs.

Formerly of Exodus Intelligence, HP TippingPoint ZDI, NASDAQ OMX and McAfee, Edwards is respected as a leading researcher in exploiting vulnerabilities. In addition to his position as adjunct lecturer and content contributor for NYU’s Poly security curriculum, Brandon is a frequent presenter at leading security conferences, and has participated, judged and contributed to numerous Capture-The-Flag competitions. Edwards has found and exploited vulnerabilities in every major operating system and the Java runtime environment.

“Brandon is recognized as one of the top vulnerability researchers in the world. His incredible wealth of expertise will keep SilverSky Labs on the forefront of threat research, providing unparalleled security, knowledge and peace of mind to our customers,” said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. “Under Edwards’ leadership, our labs team will propel SilverSky toward becoming a one-stop shop for organizations seeking insight and guidance on today’s top threats.”

Through advanced analysis and early detection of threats, SilverSky Labs leverages the technical security expertise of its team to identify problem areas and bolster the product suite to manage all possible exploits and proactively thwart adversaries. As a cloud-based managed security services provider, SilverSky processes nearly 500 million security events a day, and as a secure cloud email provider the company processes more than 50 million emails a day. As a result, SilverSky Labs is uniquely positioned to examine, correlate and analyze a massive transactional data set that other vendors do not. The Labs will leverage that research to apply “Outbreak Intelligence,” preventative rules pushed to customers faster than possible before.

“The time for upping the ante in vulnerability analysis and threat prevention efforts is now,” said Brandon Edwards, vice president of SilverSky Labs. “I look forward to working with this renowned team of experts to further explore potential risks, and the solutions that will keep threats at bay and further eliminate possible downtime for our customers.”

SilverSky Positioned in the Challengers Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving

November 14, 2013 Toggle Content

Company Announces Limited Time Offer for Email Continuity and Email Archive Services

SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned the company as a Challenger in the newly published Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving report1. The company is now offering free data migration as well as one free month of Email Continuity and/or Email Archive services to customers purchasing these services before the end of the year.

“We consider our first appearance in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant as a ‘Challenger’ confirmation of our mission to dramatically simplify how organizations secure their most important information through our advanced Security-as-a-Service platform,” said John Viega, EVP of Products, Strategy and Services, SilverSky. “With numerous Fortune 500 customers, including a single deployment of more than 50,000 archive users, we continue to innovate and execute on our product roadmap to further enhance our market position in the enterprise information archiving space.”

Among the 22 vendors evaluated in the report, SilverSky was listed as a “Challenger.” As noted by Gartner, “They have capable products and can perform well for many enterprises.” Gartner analysts evaluate service providers on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Both part of the SilverSky Email Protection Suite, the Email Continuity service eliminates costly business disruption in the event of outages by providing full email redundancy and 24x7 availability, while the Email Archive service securely stores tamper-proof messages and provides customers with enhanced capabilities to perform eDiscovery and compliance archiving for fast message recovery. The new SilverSky limited time offer is available immediately to new and existing qualified customers who do not currently deploy these solutions and will purchase by December 31, 2013. For more information about this offer, please visit: http://web.silversky.com/archive-promo.

For more than 17 years, customers around the world have relied on SilverSky to consistently deliver best-of-breed security solutions that help safeguard their corporate communications while satisfying the world’s most demanding industry regulations and audits. SilverSky’s proven SaaS delivery model enables organizations to simplify administration, avoid expensive integration and significantly reduce support costs.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Selection Boosts Security and Availability of Email and Collaboration Services for Businesses Worldwide

DALLAS, TX--- SoftLayer, an IBM Company, today announced that SilverSky, a leading provider of cloud-based information security and messaging solutions, has chosen SoftLayer to help power its cloud-based email and Email Protection Suite offerings. SilverSky's comprehensive security services, running on SoftLayer's cloud platform and distributed through IBM's global sales channel, will enable businesses around the world to quickly move email workloads and critical information into the cloud in a secure and cost-effective way.

As a provider of cloud-based information security, secure messaging and collaboration services, SilverSky protects $525 billion in customer assets and handles more than 500 million security events each day. SilverSky's growing customer base includes 6,700 organizations around the globe in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors.

SilverSky chose SoftLayer to serve this dynamic set of customers from a more comprehensive infrastructure platform at a lower cost, with significant improvements in SilverSky's ability to scale and customize environments as its business needs grow. The SoftLayer platform empowers SilverSky with state-of-the-art disaster recovery services that ensure automated redundancy and immediate recovery times, providing unparalleled availability and reliability for customers, as well as SLAs of 99.999 percent. With data centers worldwide, SoftLayer gives SilverSky greater opportunity to increase its international presence and reach new markets. In addition, with support from IBM sales and distribution channels, SilverSky can also facilitate even more growth, enabling customers to purchase its services directly from IBM or through SilverSky and its other partners.

"As the lifeblood of business, email represents one of the most critical applications in the cloud today. Choosing SoftLayer enables us to speed adoption and growth of our security and messaging solutions by offering them a simple to use, cloud-based model," said Tim Harvey, CEO of SilverSky. "High availability and uptime is paramount to successful cloud email deployments -- and SoftLayer enables us to provide extensive geo-redundancy, instantaneous disaster recovery capabilities, more aggressive service level agreements and a number of Exchange enhancements to our customers."

A recent independent study commissioned by SilverSky revealed that security decision-makers want to move critical functions, such as email, to the cloud because they expect it will reduce expenditures (67 percent), simplify operations (66 percent) and increase the reliability of business functions (56 percent). However, strong security and privacy concerns continue to inhibit widespread cloud email adoption, far surpassing other barriers. Whether a high-tech start-up with high computational needs for generating content such as video, photos or a small medical clinic that needs to share health records -- companies are seeking out new low-touch and low-cost security offerings.

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM is the global leader in cloud with an unmatched portfolio of open cloud solutions that help clients build, rent or tap into cloud capabilities. No other company has the ability to bring together unique industry knowledge and unmatched cloud capabilities, that have already helped more than 20,000 clients around the world. Today, IBM has more than 100 cloud SaaS solutions, 37,000 experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of more than 25 global cloud delivery centers. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $6 billion in acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives. Most recently IBM acquired SoftLayer with more than 21,000 clients in 140 countries to further build out its IaaS portfolio with an easy and secure on ramp to cloud integrating IBM SmartCloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud.

About SoftLayer, an IBM Company
SoftLayer, an IBM Company, operates a global cloud infrastructure platform built for Internet scale. With 100,000 devices under management, 13 data centers in the United States, Asia and Europe and a global footprint of network points of presence, SoftLayer provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service to leading-edge customers ranging from Web startups to global enterprises. SoftLayer's modular architecture provides unparalleled performance and control, with a full-featured API and sophisticated automation controlling a flexible unified platform that seamlessly spans physical and virtual devices, and a worldwide network for secure, low-latency communications. For more information, please visit softlayer.com.

About SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services, such as the Email Protection Suite with advanced Data Loss Prevention, theNetwork Protection Suite, and managed email services, that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,700 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

MILFORD, Conn., October 15, 2013 – SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today announced a special, 30-day free trial offer of its industry leading Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Email Encryption solutions. As part of the SilverSky Email Protection Suite, Email DLP and Email Encryption support any business email system, including on-premise or hosted Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, and Google Apps for Business. Offered together as a powerful combination or available separately, these easy-to-deploy and use cloud services enable organizations to achieve comprehensive message security without complexity.

“By partnering with SilverSky, the use of email encryption has surged by nearly 50 percent, clearly showing that Email DLP is successfully catching sensitive content before it leaves the organization,” said Duenas. “SilverSky’s advanced technology, expert intelligence and superior scale has enabled us to significantly reduce the costs and complexity of email security, allowing my team to focus on continued innovation for Cabrillo’s members.”

SilverSky's policy-based Email Encryption solution makes it easy to send encrypted secure email to anyone – regardless of email system. It provides an easy and straightforward tool for senders and recipients to communicate securely without the hassle of managing or remembering encryption keys. With SilverSky’s new Email Encryption Plug-In for Outlook Users, senders can automatically secure a message at the touch of a button, while SilverSky’s filtering engine checks for available rules, custom rules and other policies to which the user is subscribed. The email is encrypted, stored in a secure server and a notification is sent to the recipient(s) that a secure email is available for viewing via a password-protected Web portal.

SilverSky’s advanced Email DLP solution provides granular, context-aware policies that filter both inbound and outbound email for threats such as targeted phishing emails and for risks such as inadvertent disclosure of sensitive corporate or customer data via email. Data loss prevention policies and workflow enable flagged emails to be handled in many ways, including being blocked, redirected, quarantined, redacted or encrypted. SilverSky’s unified policy engine allows companies to write single policies that apply to all email security features, while rollup reporting provides enhanced visibility, reduced risk and lower administrative overhead.

New enhancements to the SilverSky DLP solution allow personal identifiable information (PII) to be redacted from an email after it has been sent, to ensure greater privacy and control. Additionally, a new Manager Quarantine system allows managers to view and take action on quarantined mail for their direct reports – a functionality previously only provided by on-premise DLP products. Enhanced protection capabilities also provide deeper protection against targeted phishing attacks.

“Email is the lifeblood of business communications, and keeping it secure, compliant and highly available is an increasingly daunting challenge for many organizations,” said John Viega, Executive Vice President, Products, Strategy, and Services, SilverSky. “SilverSky’s cloud-based Email DLP and Email Encryption solutions offer organizations comprehensive message security without the complexity – while breaking new ground in combining ease of use and sophisticated, market-leading capabilities.”

The 30-day free trial offer is available immediately to new and existing qualified customers. For more information about SilverSky’s limited time offer, please visit: http://web.silversky.com/free-trial.html.

SilverSky Enhances Email Protection Suite for Microsoft Office 365

September 25, 2013Toggle Content

Delivers Industry’s Most Comprehensive Suite of Email Security Software – Taking the Mailbox to Next Level of Security, Compliance and Reliability

“To truly protect your organization’s critical communications, ensuring your email is secure, compliant and highly available at all times is a business imperative,” said John Viega, Executive Vice President of Products, Strategy and Services, SilverSky. “SilverSky’s Email Protection Suite for Office 365 provides users with a robust, bullet-proof suite of advanced security solutions built onto the mailbox for increased assurance and guaranteed 24x7 availability – even when Office 365 is down.”

Dedicated to providing cloud-based email security solutions that simplify how companies protect their data, SilverSky delivers the industry’s most advanced Security-as-a-Service platform to Office 365 users. The SilverSky EPS can be implemented collectively or a la carte, and integrates seamlessly with Office 365. The suite includes the following components, all fully controlled by SilverSky’s Unified Management Console:

For more than 17 years, customers around the world have relied on SilverSky to consistently deliver best-of-breed security solutions that help safeguard their corporate communications while satisfying the world’s most demanding industry regulations and audits. SilverSky’s proven SaaS delivery model enables organizations to simplify administration, avoid expensive integration and significantly reduce support costs.

SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services, such as the Email Protection Suite with advanced Data Loss Prevention, the Network Protection Suite, and managed email services, that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,700 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

SilverSky Achieves New High in Monthly Recurring Revenue, Notes Continued Momentum in 1H 2013

August 22, 2013Toggle Content

Record Channel Performance and Growth, Ground-Breaking Innovation, Industry Accolades and Global Expansion Key Successful First Half of the Year

MILFORD, Conn., Aug. 22, 2013 – SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today announced substantial momentum in making information in the cloud more secure, accessible and compliant, including new highs in monthly recurring revenue (MRR), which grew 14 percent year-over-year for the period ending June 30, while total headcount has increased by double digits.

“2013 has been a year of unprecedented growth for SilverSky,” said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. “This continued momentum is a testament to our team’s unwavering focus on three major objectives: escalating sales of our own proven intellectual property, transforming our relationships with our channel partners and making strategic investments in the organization to support our continued growth.”

Record Channel Performance and Growth
On the heels of a record-breaking quarter for SilverSky’s channel program, recently named SilverSky channel chief Del Ross and vice president of managed security sales Brian Herman are leading the way as SilverSky transforms its global channel strategy and program and extends its channel services and support offerings throughout the sales process. Newly appointed vice president of sales engineering Steve Faruque is leading the charge in empowering SilverSky partners with enhanced technical pre-sales assistance and support, and placing increased emphasis on rewarding them for performance and commitment. The arrival of these three executives is aimed at supporting current and future partners with expert training, access to an expanding cloud services portfolio and an easy-to-manage sales process through SilverSky’s feature-rich partner portal.

Strategic Investments and Global Expansion
SilverSky’s June 2013 acquisition of the Managed Security Services division of StillSecure represents the latest in a series of major investments the company has made in the past four years to develop cloud-based security software, purpose-built to safeguard the information assets of thousands of leading enterprises. StillSecure’s award-winning managed security suite is a natural extension of SilverSky’s industry-leading Managed Security Services portfolio, which combines advanced technology, expert intelligence and superior scale to reduce the costs and complexity of network security, while improving customers’ security posture and easing the compliance burden.

Asian markets are red-hot, with companies leapfrogging over the technologies of yesterday and heading straight to the cloud in search of simple, manageable and cost-effective security solutions. To support and manage its growing portfolio of international customers and channel partners in the Asian market, including a large payment processor with more than 1,000 users, SilverSky has opened an Asia-Pacific headquarters in Manila. The Manila office also boasts a new, world-class Security Operations Center (SOC). Richard Dobrow, president, Asia Pacific region and chief compliance officer at SilverSky, will manage the company’s regional sales team across Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Additionally, the company unveiled a second U.S. SOC in 2013, its third SOC location worldwide. Each month, SilverSky’s SOCs analyze more than 15 billion raw events and more than 14,000 documented security alerts.

Ground-Breaking Innovation Protects More Than 100,000 Global Users
Today, SilverSky’s industry-leading, cloud-based Email Data Loss Prevention (DLP) platform, part of the SilverSky Email Protection Suite (EPS), monitors and protects more than 100,000 user email accounts at leading enterprise organizations. With SilverSky's Email DLP solution, CIOs and IT managers can guard against motivated malicious insiders and accidental negligence by employees to greatly reduce corporate security threats. Email DLP breaks new ground in combining ease of use and sophisticated features for companies of all sizes and easily integrates with any email solution, on-premise or in the cloud, including Office 365 and Google Apps.

Strategic New Hires
SilverSky recently appointed the following industry veterans to leadership positions within the organization:

Del Ross, Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales: Recognized in 2012 and 2013 as a CRN Magazine “Channel Chief” with more than 20 years of technology and channel sales leadership experience, Ross is responsible for building SilverSky’s highly scalable, global channel partner program.

Brian Herman, Vice President of Managed Security Sales: Recognized as a 2013 CRN Magazine “Channel Chief,” Herman has more than 15 years’ experience in the information technology industry with a strong focus on IT infrastructure and telecommunications. Herman is responsible for creating, developing and implementing the vision, strategy and execution for SilverSky’s managed security services channel partner sales and development.

Driving Discussion
Influencers and end-users alike continue to take notice of the significant market contributions made by SilverSky. The company’s newly launched EPS was featured in the 2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention. SilverSky was also recognized by the Radicati Group as a ‘Top Player’ in its Cloud Business and Consumer Email Market, 2013-2017 report. The company has also sustained its thought leadership mantel by addressing audiences at several prominent industry events throughout the first half of the year and continuously offering new and fresh content to the industry through its popular Altitude Blog. The company’s newly released report on Email Security Habits examines the perception and reality breakdown of corporate email users at U.S. organizations across a variety of industries.

New SilverSky Study Finds Overconfident Employees and Lack of Email Security Tools Lead to Risky Behavior

MILFORD, Conn., July 17, 2013 – A new study published today by SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, reveals that when it comes to email security in the workplace, 98 percent of employees believe they demonstrate either equally secure or more secure behaviors than their colleagues. SilverSky’s study examines corporate email security habits and perceptions, and is based on an online, quantitative survey conducted in July 2013. Respondents included 119 business professionals at U.S. organizations across a variety of industries.

Key findings from the study include:

Forty-three percent of respondents indicated they were “very concerned about email security and go above and beyond the company prescribed procedures” to protect their business communications. • Thirty percent of respondents claimed to be “much more security conscious” than their co-workers.

The majority of respondents (56 percent) have accidently sent an email to the wrong person while at work. Additionally, more than half of employees (53 percent) have received unencrypted, risky corporate data (credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.) via emails or email attachments.

One in five respondents know of someone within their organization who has been caught and reprimanded for sending out sensitive information without adhering to corporate protocol.

Many (53 percent) were quick to single out co-workers, saying they’ve received unencrypted, sensitive data – such as sensitive attachments, social security numbers, protected health information and valuable corporate secrets – via email. Yet only 17 percent admitted to sending out this risky data themselves.

Only 32 percent of organizations currently use an email data loss prevention (DLP) solution, and even fewer (21 percent) use an email encryption solution. As such, 46 percent of respondents indicated that email security could be improved within their organizations.

This study points to a strong “superiority bias” effect, or inflated employee overconfidence, when it comes to corporate email security. However, this overconfidence could be potentially dangerous for businesses, as it could lead to poor email security habits, which ultimately lead to real legal, regulatory and reputational risks through data loss.

“How many times have you been slapped with a speeding ticket in the past year? Now think about how many times you’ve driven over the speed limit in the same time period – my guess is for most of us, that number is significantly higher,” said Andrew Jaquith, Chief Technology Officer and SVP, Cloud Strategy at SilverSky. “The new SilverSky study draws many parallels between email security habits and driving habits. The vast majority of drivers perceive themselves to be attentive, safe operators, but in reality, most speed, eat and talk or text while behind the wheel. Likewise, many employees consider their email security behaviors to be superior to those of their colleagues. However, this hubris is likely to lead to careless behavior that could have serious consequences for the organization.”

To learn more about these new research findings, and to find out what else your employees aren’t telling you about their email security habits, please join SilverSky’s webinar on Thursday, July 18 at 1:00 p.m. ET. Register here for free.

MILFORD, Conn., June 25, 2013 –SilverSky, the expert provider of cloud security solutions, today announced it has named Del Ross vice president of worldwide channel sales. Ross’ arrival supports the transformation and growth of SilverSky’s channel partner program, which enables organizations to market the industry’s most comprehensive set of integrated cloud security, compliance and messaging services as part of their own solutions portfolios.

“Del brings to SilverSky the proven ability to architect and lead highly successful channel programs and we couldn’t be happier to add him to our management team,” said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. “His proven expertise in partner-based sales and go-to-market strategies, coupled with his deep relationships within the channel community, will be an invaluable asset to SilverSky as we continue to evaluate the role of our channel program in supporting our company’s growth trajectory.”

With more than 20 years of technology and channel sales leadership experience, Ross will be responsible for building a highly scalable, global channel program, in which partners are rewarded for performance and commitment and empowered to grow their own businesses.

Prior to joining SilverSky, Ross served as vice president of mid-market and channel sales at SugarCRM, where he grew the company’s U.S. channel program by more than 20 percent. Ross was recognized in 2012 and 2013 as a CRN Magazine “Channel Chief,” an honor reserved for the most influential and powerful leaders in the IT channel who are directly responsible for driving channel sales and growth within their organizations, while evangelizing and defending the importance of the channel throughout the entire IT industry. Previously, he served in sales management roles at several leading technology organizations including B4 Consulting (formerly IMG Americas), SAP and Sage Software.

“Cloud services are transforming the IT and business landscapes, and it’s an exciting time to join the company at the forefront of cloud security innovations and solutions,” said Ross. “I look forward to leveraging my years of channel leadership experience to transform SilverSky’s burgeoning partner program, helping organizations increase their customer engagement and differentiate themselves from the competition through a mutual investment and strong commitment to success.

Selling SilverSky's cloud security services is a high-profit and high-margin proposition. There are no upfront costs or infrastructure required, so companies can focus on selling top quality services to their customers. For more information, please visit our partner page.

MILFORD, Conn. – June 19, 2013 – SilverSky, the expert provider of cloud security solutions, today announced its role as a collaborator in releasing the results of the third annual Future of Cloud Computing Survey, conducted by North Bridge Venture Partners, GigaOM Research and supported by 56 other collaborating organizations. This year’s survey is the largest to date, examining viewpoints on drivers, inhibitors and opportunities in cloud computing across a sample of 855 respondents, including business users, IT decision makers and cloud vendors. More than a third of respondents were C-level executives within their organizations.

Cloud adoption continued to rise in 2013, with 75 percent of those surveyed reporting the use of some sort of cloud platform – up from 67 percent last year. That growth is consistent with forecasts from GigaOM Research, which expects the total worldwide addressable market for cloud computing to reach $158.8B by 2014, an increase of 126.5 percent from 2011.

This year’s survey finds several important shifts in why and how cloud computing is being used, obstacles to adoption, where cloud decision-making resides within organizations, and how the vendor landscape is changing. It also serves as a barometer for the industry’s progression. Feedback from across the different categories of respondents was consistent, signaling a convergence of vendor and user needs. Further, the survey reveals that business is driving the revolution deriving clear benefits from cloud adoption in the form of continuous innovation and business agility to yield competitive advantage.

Survey Highlights

Business is dominating the use of cloud technology:

Organizations average 52 percent current use of applications that advance business priorities, compared with an average 36 percent that use applications that advance IT priorities – underscoring the increasing value placed by organizations on facilitating the delivery of services beyond IT via the cloud

Of the 16 cloud application areas tracked (8 business cloud applications and 8 IT cloud applications), 4 business cloud applications (file sharing, business productivity, CRM/marketing and social business/collaboration) are in use by more than half of all organizations, yet not a single IT cloud application is in use by more than half of all organizations

Still, going forward respondents stated that 6 out of the top 7 fastest areas of growth in cloud applications will be in IT areas: Big Data, mobile, systems management, backup/DR/BC, helpdesk and security

Over two-thirds (68 percent ) see greater migration to the cloud as bringing equal or better total cost of ownership (TCO) to the organization

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) leads but fastest growth is in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which will give way to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in five years:

SaaS remains the most popular form of cloud service, used by 63 percent of organizations, up from 55 percent last year

However, the fastest growth today is in IaaS, with usage rising from 35 percent to 45 percent, a 29 percent increase over the prior year

The top cloud companies cited are brand name, infrastructure players, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Rackspace, but 300 companies had less than 2 percent of responses each, indicating that there are a large number of up and coming companies, and no single company has captured all of the momentum

Meanwhile, platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is forecast to grow the fastest in the next five years, with 72 percent of respondents expecting to use PaaS in their organization within that time

Agility and scalability are the primary drivers for cloud adoption. However, the need for cloud services to support mobility and the ability for continuous innovation to drive competitive advantage through more integrated business processes are all key drivers for the future.

More than half of respondents cited business agility (54.5 percent) and scalability (54.3 percent ) as the main drivers

Cost is close behind with 48 percent citing it as a driver

Mobility is the next major driver with a quarter of the respondents recognizing the that mobility is powered by cloud services

And innovation (22 percent) as delivered continuously from the cloud is ultimately leading to competitive advantage (14 percent)

Cloud APIs are also cited as important this year as users look to move beyond stove pipe applications to more integrated business services

Security is starting to lose its label as the primary inhibitor to cloud adoption as other significant adoption issues arise:

Though still the top inhibitor, security is declining year-over-year from 55 percent of respondents in 2012 to only 46 percent in 2013

At least as important to security, 46 percent described the management of IT as “more complex” with the growing use of cloud components, reflecting the immaturity of the cloud stack

Vendor lock-in (35 percent) and Interoperability (27 percent) continue to weigh on customer’s minds as they look for best of breed choices in the schism between a few large players and the long tail of alternative emerging vendors

Reliability (22.3 percent) and complexity (21 percent) were among the top inhibitors, reflecting real world obstacles to an “always-on” services infrastructure

Cost is up sharply as a perceived barrier – almost 50 percent year-over-year – and is now cited by 28 percent of respondents as all of the above factors weigh in

Challenges to IT present opportunity:

In response to the inhibitors to cloud adoption, a majority of respondents (55 percent) expect hybrid or multi-cloud providers to emerge to challenge the current cloud ecosystem in the next 2-3 years

In five years, more than three-quarters (76 percent) of respondents expect hybrid clouds to be the core of their cloud strategies overtaking public and private clouds

Nearly 40 percent of respondents expect to increase their training investment to support a cloud computing expansion in their organization

Despite the rise of cost as an inhibitor, surprisingly, more than half (53 percent) of respondents are neither tracking nor recording service costs

Supporting Quotes:

Andrew Jaquith, Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President Cloud Strategy, SilverSky
“CIOs are moving their critical workloads to the cloud to cut their costs, simplify their architectures and enable new opportunities. But security has always been a key concern. Customers are essentially entrusting services they can’t do without to someone they don’t know. Fortunately, this year’s survey suggests that cloud vendors have an opportunity to provide more clarity, transparency and assurance about customer data protection than ever before. Customers may find that vendors are doing things better in the cloud than they can in-house. If this is the case, the time to switch is now!”

Michael Skok, General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners“Clearly, even in the 3rd year of our survey, we're still very early in the cloud-computing revolution. Yet the cloud formations we identified in last year’s survey are clearly on an unstoppable rise. Self-empowered consumers and businesses are taking the lead, and in many instances, regardless of IT. But IT is investing heavily both adapting internal infrastructure and adopting public infrastructure to respond on demand while managing the inevitable issues of compliance and regulation through hybrid approaches. And to realize the promise of the cloud, there is a clear call for the industry as a whole to help reduce complexity, and provide better interoperability.”

Describing a vision of Bring Your Own Cloud services (BYOC) and the new reality of what Skok calls “Boundary-less” computing and “Out-servicing” he continued:
“Cloud services are being adopted and used in a “boundary-less” way where users are seamlessly integrating them at home and work across all their devices. And in an increasingly mobile pattern of business today companies are compelled to accept and adopt this BYOC model. In fact businesses themselves are adopting the boundary-less approach as they look to disintermediate and squeeze money from their value chains, focus on their core competencies and “out-service” (outsource non-core services) via the cloud. With all this in mind they are looking to gain competitive advantage from a core benefit of the cloud, namely continuous innovation by passing it along to their customers in the form of faster time to market and responsiveness to market needs.” (For more including industry predictions, see blog post.)

David Card, Vice President of Research, GigaOM
"Technology buyers expect cloud adoption will make managing IT increasingly complex, yet the plurality also expect overall better cost of ownership. That's either wishful thinking or an intriguing opportunity for suppliers and systems integrators."

SilverSky to Acquire StillSecure’s Managed Security Services Business

June 5, 2013Toggle Content

MILFORD, Conn., June 5, 2013 –SilverSky, the expert provider of cloud security solutions, announced today it has acquired the Managed Security Services division of StillSecure, a Colorado-based managed security services and certified compliance provider. This acquisition is the latest in a series of major investments SilverSky has made in the past four years to develop cloud-based security software, purpose-built to safeguard the information assets of thousands of leading enterprises.

StillSecure’s award-winning managed security suite is a natural extension of SilverSky’s industry-leading Managed Security Services portfolio, which combines advanced technology, expert intelligence and superior scale to reduce the costs and complexity of network security, while improving customers’ security posture and easing the compliance burden. The Managed Security Services portfolio, along with SilverSky’s cloud email and email security solutions, are key components of the company’s charter to secure their customers’ most important information.

With the addition of StillSecure’s technology portfolio, security analysts and engineers, SilverSky can provide its fast-growing customer base with an enhanced suite of cloud-based offerings – including a new Log Archiving solution and Web Application Firewall service. This robust suite offers a complete solution for customers seeking to protect their most important information, and enables growth-minded business leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry.

SilverSky will continue to fully support StillSecure customers and channel partners, providing them full access to its comprehensive portfolio of software and managed services. StillSecure customers and partners will also benefit from SilverSky’s unmatched scalability, its widely acclaimed Security Operations Center (SOC) and its world-class team of expert security professionals and practitioners.

Each day, SilverSky protects $525 billion in customer assets and analyzes 500 million security events with global reach for more than 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. All SilverSky solutions are served on a world-class, carrier grade cloud platform that has been audited to the industry’s highest security standards. For more, please visit www.SilverSky.com, or the SilverSky Altitude Blog.

About the Cloud Security Solutions Provider, SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers’ most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit www.SilverSky.com.

SilverSky Joins NetApp Service Provider Partner Program

April 30, 2013Toggle Content

Customers Gain Seamless Migration to the Cloud with SilverSky and NetApp

MILFORD, Conn., April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of messaging and information security solutions, today announced that it has joined the NetApp Partner Program for Service Providers.

The NetApp Partner Program for Service Providers brings together NetApp and world-class service providers to deliver cloud-based solutions that address customers' needs. With NetApp, SilverSky is able to bring its differentiated messaging and email services to market faster. Additionally, in collaboration with NetApp, SilverSky can provide end users with a one-stop shop for their unique data storage needs — on-premise, cloud-based or a hybrid environment of the two.

By joining the NetApp® Partner Program, SilverSky becomes part of an industry-leading ecosystem of products and services. NetApp customers can access a wide spectrum of SilverSky services focused on corporate email to help them store, protect and meet data compliance standards.

"SilverSky technology will allow NetApp users to enjoy all the benefits of storing their data in the cloud while eliminating the number one concern of most users: security," said Randal Skipper , executive vice president, Global Sales, SilverSky. "Our mission is to remove the uncertainty that can accompany a move to the cloud and ensure that the user receives unparalleled security protection while realizing the many benefits and flexibility afforded by the cloud."

"SilverSky is one of the innovative organizations in NetApp's expanding partner program ecosystem," said Jon Mellon , vice president and general manager, Service Provider Partners, NetApp. "Our collaboration with SilverSky enables the seamless migration of data to the cloud which can be continuously and easily managed through NetApp's advanced architecture."

MILFORD, Conn., April 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the expert provider of cloud security solutions, today announced the exciting results of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of SilverSky. The study projects that one of SilverSky's customers, a U.S. community bank with $750M in assets, 12 branches and approximately 120 employees, will realize a return on investment (ROI) of 304 percent over a three year period by using SilverSky's network security solutions.

According to The Total Economic Impact™ Of SilverSky Network Security Solutions study*, "By implementing SilverSky network security services, the community bank meaningfully improved its network security while increasing the overall productivity of the IT organization and avoiding costs that would have resulted had the company continued to use an in-house approach to network security. The organization also gained valuable reassurance that its network was being monitored 24x7x365 by a team of network security experts with the capacity to respond quickly and effectively to network security threats, a paradigm that would have been extremely costly and complex for the organization to manage on its own."

Prior to engaging SilverSky, the bank relied on out-of-the-box security products and managed its network security using an in-house approach. However, after a significant expansion and suffering a security breach, the bank's management recognized the critical need to reduce costs and complexity and improve network security. To accomplish this, the bank implemented SilverSky's cloud security solutions – including its Managed Security Services, Network Protection Software, and Professional Services.

Forrester Consulting's study identifies the following five key benefits of SilverSky's network security services based on in-depth interviews with the SilverSky customer:

Reduced IT staff hiring costs: The bank improved its ability to execute network security tasks using SilverSky's robust, automated cloud solutions, while significantly reducing its need to hire additional in-house IT personnel. The study projects that reduced hiring costs will save the bank $652,138 over a three year period.

Improved IT staff productivity: With SilverSky, the bank conducted network security tasks more efficiently and with a higher degree of reliability, boosting staff productivity and reducing man-hours by 12 to 25 hours per week.

Decreased security incident remediation costs: SilverSky's solutions helped the bank prevent three potential security breaches in 2012, saving the customer an estimated $104,550 in remediation and downtime costs in the first year of the contract alone.

Eliminated point solution licensing and management costs: Following the SilverSky implementation, the bank eliminated several network security point solutions, leading to savings from previous licensing/maintenance expenses and streamlined vendor management.

Decreased support costs for compliance and audits: SilverSky's compliance expertise and audit-ready reporting helped the bank reduce time spent on compliance-related activities by 60 percent for its CISO and 50 percent for its IT staff.

"SilverSky's solutions provide value to our customers by reducing costs and complexity, improving network security and reducing the compliance burden," says Andrew Jaquith , chief technology officer at SilverSky. "I believe that this study, using data from a current customer, shows our value proposition in action and will help potential customers understand how they can benefit from SilverSky's network security solutions."

In the Forrester Consulting study, a senior IT manager at the bank describes, "After contacting SilverSky, speaking with them, and seeing a demo of their solutions, we were sold right off the bat. We were already familiar with competitors' products, knew what they'd offer and had a good handle on their pricing structures; we knew others weren't going to provide everything SilverSky had to offer."

Flexible, Reliable and Secure Cloud Services from SilverSky Up To 90 Percent off in USAC E-Rate Program

MILFORD, Conn., March 5, 2013 -- SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today announced its support for the Universal Service Administrative Company's (USAC) E-Rate government funding for telecommunications and Internet services. The rapid pace of change in security technology, coupled with the alarming number of information security breaches, highlight the need to truly protect intellectual property. Cyber threats are rising steadily and are continuing to increase in both frequency and sophistication. Email services, data protection and firewall solutions from SilverSky represent the next generation of security and are being discounted up to 90 percent for eligible schools, libraries and consortia through the program.

"The USAC E-Rate program represents a tremendous opportunity for school systems to upgrade their technical capabilities and allow students and faculty to freely correspond via email," said Randal Skipper , EVP, SilverSky. "Establishing best practices for email security is a key consideration for schools at every level as educators need to have confidence that email communications will be kept private and secure. This is where SilverSky can assist them greatly."

Email is often regarded as the most critical business service; therefore, keeping it secure is among the highest priorities along with compliance, availability and performance. As a premier provider of cloud security solutions, SilverSky technology and services are available to eligible participants in the USAC program and will deliver the utmost value for K-12 schools and libraries seeking email security and data protection.

SilverSky's hosted Microsoft Exchange service and SilverSky's Firewall Management solution are both eligible for funding as part of the program. SilverSky provides enterprise-class, highly secure hosted Exchange, along with a the industry's most comprehensive Email Protection Suite featuring advanced anti-virus/anti-spam, email DLP, encryption and compliance archiving. SilverSky's Firewall Management solution is the first line of defense for your network, supported by 24x7 technical support and a team of security experts to analyze and prevent threats in real time.

Eligible parties have until March 14, 2013 to choose an E-Rate service provider. For more information, please contact info@silversky.com.

About SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

SilverSky will host RSA attendees in booth #149 in the Moscone Convention Center for a series of innovative demonstrations and discussions. Attendees can experience:

The industry’s only advanced security-as-a-service platform, which makes the cloud simple, manageable and cost-effective. SilverSky manages, secures and monitors organizations’ vital information assets with a comprehensive portfolio of software and managed services, delivered through this unified policy-aware platform.

SilverSky's Email Protection Suite (EPS), which delivers a complete, fully integrated suite of email security solutions, featuring advanced DLP, email archiving, email continuity and AV/AS and encryption. SilverSky’s EPS is built on a single cloud management platform, providing unified security and control over both inbound and outbound corporate messaging.

RSA attendees can also preview newly released data from a survey of U.S. CIOs that reveals a dramatic surge in cloud confidence over the past 12 months, yet points to overarching security concerns that continue to inhibit widespread cloud adoption.

Additionally, attendees are also invited to a cocktail reception, hosted by SilverSky, at B Restaurant & Bar on Wednesday, February 27, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. PST.

An oft-cited application security authority, author of numerous security books – including the seminal Building Secure Software – and former McAfee CTO, SilverSky’s John Viega will participate in a panel discussion, “Software Security: A Waste of Time,” on whether or not it’s important to fix every bug. So is it worth it, or not? Find out during this presentation, which will take place on Wednesday, February 27, at 9:20 a.m., in room 132 at the Moscone Convention Center.

A recognized authority on data, endpoint and mobile security topics, Andrew Jaquith is chief technology officer and senior vice president at SilverSky. The top-rated RSA Conference speaker was previously a senior analyst with Forrester Research. At this year's RSA Conference, Jaquith will share his perspective on the rise of penetration testing tools, and whether the benefits of such tools outweigh their detriments in a debate, “Internet Gun Control - Are Pentesting Tools Good or Evil?” This will take place on Tuesday, February 26, at noon in the Security Theater – Expo (Gateway 102/103/104) at the Moscone Convention Center.

The RSA Conference continually evolves program offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of delegates in the dynamic information security industry. The conference will be held February 25 – March 1, 2013 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. To schedule a one-on-one meeting with SilverSky experts during RSA Conference 2013, please call 781-966-4112.

One quarter of all business functions currently in the cloud; security and privacy concerns underscore critical need for vendor transparency, clarity and assurance

MILFORD, Conn., Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today revealed findings of an independently commissioned study which examines key drivers of – and barriers to – cloud adoption. The study reveals that as a whole, companies are much more confident in the cloud than they were 12 months ago, yet security and privacy concerns continue to hold many back from widespread adoption.

Two hundred U.S. chief information officers and senior level security decision-makers were surveyed in the company's new "Silver Lining Report." Nearly all (97 percent) of survey respondents indicate their confidence level in the cloud has either increased or stayed the same in the past 12 months. On average, respondents have moved one-quarter of all their business functions and services to the cloud, the most popular being e-Commerce (41 percent), closely followed by email (39 percent) and storage (30 percent). Many respondents have plans to migrate additional applications within the next 12 months, particularly storage and e-Commerce (both 16 percent) and middleware/infrastructure (14 percent). However, traditional back-office functions such as finance and accounting and procurement applications show no upward movement.

Surveyed executives want to move more functions and services to the cloud because they expect it will reduce expenditures (67 percent), simplify operations (66 percent) and increase the reliability of business functions (56 percent). However, 74 percent of respondents harbor strong concerns around privacy and security, and for some, these concerns outweigh benefit expectations. Although the percentage of executives that are enthusiastic about cloud services is fairly high (28 percent), they are outnumbered by the skeptics (39 percent).

Though cost is noted as the number one driver for cloud adoption, 38 percent of respondents indicate that cost is also an inhibitor. Additionally, one out of every two executives surveyed are currently unsure whether cloud-based services will cut internal support costs, or add to them. However, based on migration trends revealed in this study, SilverSky expects 2013 to represent a tipping point for assessing the financial benefits of cloud adoption.

When it comes to cloud vendor evaluation, survey data shows that influencers sway short lists, especially recommendations from analysts (52 percent) and colleagues (64 percent); but ultimately, personal research trumps all at 76 percent. Vendor commitment is also critical in the evaluation process. Once organizations decide to migrate to the cloud, they look at three primary determining factors when evaluating potential cloud partners: assurance that the vendor can commit to stringent service level agreement (SLA) guidelines (43 percent), assurance that the vendor can migrate their employees efficiently (41 percent) and assurance that third parties can vouch for the provider's security (39 percent).

"Moving to the cloud should be career-defining, not career-limiting," said Andrew Jaquith , CTO, SilverSky. "When CIOs and security decision-makers move their critical workloads to the cloud, they seek providers that cut their costs, simplify their architectures and protect their data. But equally important, they are making a leap of faith by entrusting services they can't do without to someone they don't know. The data in the Silver Lining Report show us why transparency, clarity and assurance are so essential."

Methodology
SilverSky's "Silver Lining Report" is based on an online, quantitative market research study commissioned by SilverSky and conducted by independent research firm ResearchNow in late 2012. Respondents included 200 CIOs and senior-level security decision-makers (171 chief information officers and 29 chief technology officers) at U.S. organizations. Respondents came from 17 verticals, with 62 percent from four industries: manufacturing, professional services, information services and financial services. Most respondents were enterprise (36 percent) and midsize (39 percent) IT decision-makers.

About the Cloud Security Provider, SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

SilverSky's New Email Protection Suite Now Available as White-Label Solution for Managed Services Providers

MILFORD, Conn., Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SilverSky, the expert cloud provider of information security solutions, today announced company executives will attend the 2013 Parallels Summit on February 4 - 6 in Las Vegas, and will be actively recruiting new channel partners to market SilverSky's expanded cloud security services – including the company's brand new comprehensive Email Protection Suite (EPS) – as part of their own solutions portfolios.

SilverSky's Email Protection Suite (EPS) is fully integrated and built on a single cloud management platform, providing unified security and control over both inbound and outbound corporate messaging.

"SilverSky's broad suite of differentiated services – from integrated cloud security to compliance and messaging services – provide our partner organizations with a one-stop-shop for their customers' email security needs," said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. "Our Web-based SilverSky management console is fully partner-enabled, providing reseller partners with valuable insights into their own customers and service usage trends. This deeper customer engagement empowers reseller organizations to continuously enhance their own services and differentiate themselves from the competition."

Selling SilverSky's cloud security services is a high-profit and high-margin proposition. There are no upfront costs or infrastructure required, so companies can focus on selling top quality services to their customers. SilverSky offers two partner programs: reseller and referral. For more information, please visit: https://www.silversky.com/about-us/partners.

About SilverSky

SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers' most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

SilverSky has invested millions of dollars into developing email security software that is purpose-built to safeguard corporate communications of thousands of large enterprises and highly regulated businesses. Its heritage as the industry’s most trusted managed services provider has enabled SilverSky to develop software and implement controls that satisfy the world’s most demanding industry regulations and audits. The company is making this formerly exclusive security software available to any organization or partner as a single, unified, comprehensive and easy to use software-as-a-service solution.

“To meet the exceedingly high security standards that our heavily regulated and enterprise customers demand, we had to build out the stack of email security software that was better than any commercial alternative,” said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. “We are excited to make this innovative technology available as a standalone software-as-a-service offering.”

While strong oversight of inbound messaging is important, strict control of outbound messaging is critical, especially in today’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) era. The SilverSky platform delivers a complete, fully integrated suite of email security solutions, including advanced DLP, email archiving, email continuity and AV/AS and encryption. In addition, deep integration with external IP stores for superior data risk reduction and alignment with highly regulated infrastructure and policies are included in the platform.

“At Farmers, we have highly customized policy requirements that track the flow of sensitive email with zero tolerance for business disruption,” said Rod Chamberlin, AVP, eBusiness/AIMS, Farmers Insurance Group, a SilverSky customer. “We picked SilverSky’s Email DLP based on scalability, functionality, integration and financial impact. It was simply the best choice for us.”

SilverSky’s single policy engine makes it easy to write one policy across all services based on any message data or metadata – even third party services. The basic content control allows customers to block critical outbound information such as credit cards and social security numbers, while its leading DLP technology allows for fine-grained actions that ensure the industry’s highest level of data protection. Advanced analysis features like content-aware fingerprinting and proximity checking, full redaction capabilities and the ability to test policies before deploying them, usually reserved for standalone, enterprise solutions, are now available to secure email.

“When it comes to security, companies often spend too much time concerned with incoming traffic and protecting themselves against viruses, worms and botnets. While those things are important, it’s the critical information flowing out of your organization that represents the greatest risk,” said John Viega, executive vice president, SilverSky. “Our email DLP technology is a quantum leap over the one-dimensional channel DLP and content filtering solutions, and it protects confidential information, while our extraordinarily flexible definition framework matches the exact risk appetite and tolerance for business disruption of each individual organization.”

About SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers’ most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.

Led by some of the market’s foremost security pioneers, including key leaders from McAfee, XAware, Symantec/MessageLabs, Verdasys, @Stake and Forrester Research and backed by respected investors including Goldman Sachs and Bessemer Ventures, SilverSky has mobilized to realize the promise of cloud security solutions – simple, manageable, cost-effective. The company has invested more than $20 million in the past four years to develop cloud-based security software, purpose-built to safeguard the information assets of thousands of leading enterprises and regulated businesses, while satisfying the most demanding regulations and audit standards.

“SilverSky is the culmination of the innovative technology, industry leading business email and proven managed security services we have delivered to market for years with our carrier-class software platform,” said Tim Harvey, CEO, SilverSky. “As SilverSky, our strategy is to unbundle our previously exclusive software to make it available to every customer organization. We believe this is a game changer – and will enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions by providing true IP loss prevention to minimize security concerns.”

SilverSky is offering a complete solution for customers seeking to protect their most important information:

Each day, SilverSky protects $525 billion in customer assets and 500 million security events for more than 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. All SilverSky services are hosted within the United States on a world-class, carrier grade cloud platform that has been audited to the industry’s highest security standards. For more, please visit www.SilverSky.com, or the SilverSky Altitude Blog.

About SilverSky
SilverSky is the expert provider of cloud security solutions. Born from our success as a managed services provider, our Security-as-a-Service platform delivers cloud-based software and managed services that protect critical information simply and cost effectively. By tirelessly safeguarding our customers’ most important information, we enable growth-minded leaders to pursue their business ambitions without security worry. Our growing customer base includes 6,000 organizations in the financial services, retail, healthcare, energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. For more information, visit SilverSky.com.